You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast. In fact, you are,
and a weir we go Welcome back to the Gain and Salt the Experienced podcast,
Roof. I don't know if you know this. Oh, I know
the only one that brings the firehouse kitchen table to I don't know about that.
Listen. I want to tell you this thing. I don't know about
that. There's a lot of guys at this saying they do. But let
me give you this little I don't know you're ready for this. Can you
get good pizza in Florida? No? You can't. You know why because
you need the write ingredients. You can call it pizza. I don't give
a shit what you call you call, but it's not really pizza. You
could say you've got the only fire house kitch your table, but you really
don't because you don't have the right ingredients. You don't have this right here.
So keep saying that you're the only podcast. The guy on the podcast
the day before we get him on the podcast, how about that? Oh
that hurts. That one hurts. That's a that's lease on that one.
I think if you see me, if you see me moving around in my
seat, my Hinne's a little sore from that one. So I know somebody
else's Hini? Who was a little saw? Who's that? Who's that?
Let let's just say I was at UH. I just want to say I
was in Harrisburg this week and it was great and UH, I met a
lot of people. I actually almost I ran it to UH. I ran
it to Jeremy. He's setting me up here we go fire radio? I
did? He was. I mean, no, it's not natural fire radio.
It's I don't go to NFI, which means I don't go to no
fire radio. But he did. He did beat you to the punch.
But oh, he's got a picture of his cat. Oh what is that?
What happened? Just you ran right into him. I don't know what
was already there and you just what happened? Wow? Wow? Man?
You know if I had, if I had feelings that I would be hurt
right now. Take that in. Yeah, that guy is in there.
He gave video a lot. I didn't know you guys were having him on
tonight. I'm like, dude, are you are you at your point?
Yeah? That's my point, YEP, it's the I don't go to NFL.
It's I don't go to no fire radio. So that's what we're gonna
call him. And the other guy is Pindicue and the donkey what he doesn't
I don't know. I don't know if he does. But that's all I
gotta say about that, right, So so listen, we have a blockbuster
guest bow. This guy gives and gives back the fries service. You don't
even have to bro you know. He's a big Hollywood guy. You'll see
how butter him up when he comes in here. So, oh man,
he's got the shuttles falling out of his pocket all over the place. So
listen for the three d games out. So for the three of you guys
that actually watched Jeremy Show, don't ruin if you have a couple of thousand
in our show tonight, all right, don't route it for a few thousand
watching live tonight. All right, I'm not am not all right, guys,
Let's move forward, come on quickly, all right, Here we go,
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excellent, excellent, excellent. All right, it's time for before we
bring in, uh mister Barker, it's time for a new segment on the
show. It'll be very brief, h So gonzo throw that out there,
bro al right from me, buddy, I had on my end. What
see that? One more time for me? I didn't miss what you say?
What we'll be strowing up here right now? Gods, it's your que
todd and unshy and unfiltered. Ladies and gentlemen. This is Coops's rings.
Yes, this is a rent. This would be really quick. So I
don't know if you guys know about the live burn that went out in ban
Canada. So it was a prescribed burn highlighted on the agenda of a woman's
firefighting conference held to promote diversity and conclusion in a male dominated field. It
didn't go so well. Accidentally setting BANF National Park ablaze wasn't part of the
plan. Subscribe burn was carried out in compound medals adjacent to the BF town
site. It rags out of control Wednesday, forcing a temporary evacuation of horses
from the Banef Light Horse Association and hundreds of area residents and tourists and the
Rocky Mountain Resort. I'll make this really brief, so being a rough we
say it all the time. I don't give a shit what you are.
I don't give a shit if you're a man, I don't give a shit
if you're a woman. I don't give a shit what color you are.
I'm gonta give a shit what you got between you like, just do a
goddamn job. That's all we're saying. If you could do the job,
then you're just a firefighter. You don't have to be a male firefighter.
You don't have to be a female firefighter. You don't have to be an
Italian firefighter. You don't have to be a firefighter with a big, fat,
crooked nose. You can just be a firefighter, bro, that's all
I'm asking for. Can we stop putting people in boxes and just do a
goddamn job earn it down buildings? And yeah, that's it. That's all
I gotta say about that. That's it. Thank you. That's today.
Don't all right? You want to bring him in? Bro, let me
get let me get my seat, pill because my butt turnta come to the
stage, Captain Bobby Burke. Whoa, he's like, no doubt he's saying
that. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show, Captain Burke.
Before we get started talking about your dual career here, let's get patriotic served.
Can you see by the dawnslylight? What's so brightly we held at the
twine lights? Lastlyming whose broad stripes and bright stars? Through the proless fight
or the ramparts we watched were so galled lee streaming and the rocket rack glad
the box fasting gay froof through the night? That are flags? Was there?
Oh? Say? Does that StarSpangled God? Or the land of the
Friend and the home of the brand? Amen? Well, like I said
before, thank you for coming on the show. Even if you saw the
show mister Brooke, I appreciate it. But that speaks to what an honor
is to be here. I know what I mean, And I mean he's
good. I don't know if he's out right. I've seen some of the
people you've had on the show, and it is an honor beyond, uh,
anything that I could ask for. So I appreciate being Well, let's
talk about how you have the time to do two careers. How do they
have time to be a volley captain, a firefighter? And I mean,
I'm looking over some of the films you're being been in that they're like,
I didn't even know you're in half of these? How did you even start
that? How did you even start? I mean, let's talk about how
at the beginning. I know you get your first generation. Uh, your
dad was from Galloway, Ireland, So give us the early You grew up
in Manhattan somewhere. I think I was in Manhattan until I was a I
was a child in Washington Heights. My parents immigrated from Ireland. They were
in the thirties. Um, you know, my father worked in the refrigeration
warehouses on the West side of Manhattan. He was a bartender. He was
the super of our building. So, um, you know it was it
was we didn't know any better. We were happy, Uh, not much
money and stuff like that. Son, My father got a job as a
m well a priest who in our family knew situation and said to my father,
I can get your job as a church custodian in the east Northport.
Get your family out of the city. So my father took the job and
he retired. Well, he was a church custodian until he passed away in
nineteen eighty four at the age of sixty four. And um, yeah,
so that's that's that's how we you know, from Ireland to um Manhattan.
And but ninety five percent of my family are still in Ireland. Really,
you know, back often, all right, as much as I can.
Yeah, I go back very often. Actually I haven't been back since twenty
nineteen, but we'll change that. And I mean quite a few. It's
embarrassing how many cousins really sure? Yeah? Yeah, you have an identical
twin brother, is that fraternal? Fraternal? Billy? Yeah, fraternal?
And I have three older sisters, uh, two r ends. One's a
nurse pectitioner and one was a speech phothologist. An audiologist all retired. What
does Billy do? Your brother? High tech medical equipment sales. Yeah,
so that was a pretty big move to get to go from manhatt I mean
it's a big move to coming here obviously, but then to go to Manhattan
to Long Island. What year was at that was? That was seventy.
My father didn't my father didn't care for my father. It's not that he
didn't care for America, but he missed Ireland. Whereas my mother never looked
over her shoulder. She couldn't get out of there fast. She came here
first. She was a seamstress. She worked her way up, got a
seamstress job with some uh, you know shop on Fifth Avenue and uh.
And then my father came a year later. And then did they meet in
Ireland? They were they were dating in Ireland and my father wouldn't pop the
question. And I think the story was they met on a bus uh in
uh in the city somewhere and that was it. She knew he was on
the way over. My father had a sister, Mary, who worked with
the Boston Red Sox Organization for forty years. She was the private secretary of
Tom and Jane Yaki, the owners, and uh, so she facilitated a
lot of you know, their honeymoon these types of things. And yeah,
you grow up a Red Sox fan, did you? No? I did
not, not in Washington Heights. So there's a story there because we would
get boxes of the top notch Red Sox swag and my father we'd all look
in the box and we're like, wow, that's nice stuff, and down
to the down to the convent it would go. My brother said to me,
this poor kid somewhere in the country where in the finest red sixe in
Washington Heights. You'd be like, yeah, funny look, um, yeah,
before the right across the river, right across you know, yeah,
your Marshall arts career too, right what you're black? Oh? Yes,
I I second degree. I stopped training about oh uh twenty years ago.
I trained for twenty years. Um. I trained with the some of the
great best guys in the world in Camp Hanson in Okinawa. During the Vietnam
War, they would rotate Marines in and out of that base. It was
a Marine Corps base, and so out the back door of this particular Camp
Hanson was the headquarters of this particular style of karate. You had an in
northern amount of Marines who came back to this country to proliferate that style.
It's called Matsubayashi Sharon rue, very no frills, Okinawan style. Five bucks
in the can on a Monday, Wednesday, Saturday night, very cheap.
It wasn't a belt factory. I can tell you that. I was a
white belt for like five years. I thought they just forgot me, but
I didn't. It was not a commercial school like Burke. Yeah. It
wasn't a commercial school like Oh, on Saturday, you're gonna take you a
double secret test and you're gonna pay two hundred and fifty bucks and you gotta
get you. Yeah. No. One night, one night he reached it
and he pulled out a belt that was like brown with green with brown tips,
and he goes, work hard and you'll deserve that someday. And that's
the same thing he said to me after seven years when I showed on it's
called uh. He gave me my black belt after seven years and he said,
work hard, someday, you'll deserve that. Wow. So twenty years
of it, Oh yeah, no, I trained I. Yeah. That
was the one thing that they asked me and I remember specifically, they said,
what we what we train, what we show. You don't forget it.
It would be an insult too to forget it. So it was complimentary
to to acting like uh, at the beginning of a kada, you say
hiju may it means begin, so you don't go, oh wait, you
know, oh let me adjust my you know, you go, you know
what I mean? And so um listen. Uh for five bucks, you
were getting like soaken, like the the warm up was designed to make you
pass out, you know, and you know, vomit. It was really
good, strong, hard training. It was like having your own personal trainer,
you know what I mean. But you were learning something and it was
very Uh. You were learning to move with people very you know, in
a sequential move and then weapons. Uh try to be your alley Kobe.
Yeah did you train? I did? Oh? What did you train?
I took a couple of different things I took. H they're very far it
right now, bro, Yeah, it'll come to me. Uh. Taekwondo
I took for a long time, which is it's not it's not made for
somebody older with high kicks and stuff like that. I have bad knees.
It's just not practical, it's not I did a little jiu jitsu, but
not anything to speak up. But I did it for a long time too.
It's fun, it's a good workout. It is a good workout,
and you can throw a beat down if you have to. Yeah, many
black boats get theirs kicked every day. So even monkeys can fall out of
trees. Yeah, I see squirrels ting all over the places. Miss in
the branch. Dude, So you went to you go to Northport or East?
I'm sorry East Northport. I don't. I don't want to. I'm
very proud of it's the Northport. And what when did you know you wanted
to be an actor? But uh, there's a couple of different segues.
Uh. My father worked on the docks. He had an Irish accent.
He was six three two seventy five. I said I want to be an
actor and he said three words. He goes, fucking what? And so
I said an actor and he goes, we don't do that, and he
goes he goes, we don't even know anybody who does that, and and
then he's like, Mary, come in here. He's talking. Man.
He was the boy wants you have no idea, we're gonna have to smack
some sense it to him. Forgot six. I think back on him,
and I think, the poor guy, you know what I mean, what
must he have thought? Like? He just was like, you're gonna be
a fucking you know you're gonna so And we had hooks in the in the
in the New York City Police Department from that neighborhood. But anyway, he
was very supportive in the end, you know. He used to take me
to classes, and then I got an internship. Uh. It wasn't like
guys and dolls and these types. It was. It was anyway. I
was supposed to um answer the phone and paint scenery and sweep the floor.
But I tried out for two of the shows and I got them. And
I'll try to make the short. So I traveled the country in my senior
year of high school rather than go to school, and they given me one
hundred and fifty bucks a day to eat with. That's the per diem cash,
untaxed because I'm a student, and I kept it in a shoe box.
I couldn't eat four dollars worth the food in nineteen seventy seven, so
I keep it in a shoe box. It's number two shoe boxes. And
I come home and I have these two shoe boxes and I showed my old
man. He goes, He goes, what's that? And I said,
that's what they gave me for action for acting. Well fuck, it might
not be a bad thing, you know. Anyway, he goes, can
you go to school for that? And I said yeah, yeah, and
he goes, well, okay, And so I got a scholarship to a
school in West Virginia. I went to Suffolk Community. I went to Delphi
uh where else there? And then I did four years at a state University
of New York and Purchase, New York in Westchester. And that was a
tough place to get into. The training was very solid. Uh Stanley Tucci,
Wesley Snipes, Edie Falco, they were all with me there. I
was with them there, and uh yeah, so that's how I I was
trained. And so he never got to see you in a big movie or
what about your mom? She passed away twenty and eighteen. She was ninety
eight. She was great. She was she was a oh yeah, like
I you know, I saw her almost every day or I took care of
her for seventeen years. Uh. I always tried to get acting jobs in
New York. Uh, you know, I took it every almost ninety eight
percent of her doctor's appointments all the time. She was in a terrible accident
in seventy six. She was hit by a drunk driver. Left handicap terribly.
Uh you know, uh, twenty percent vision left, but strong,
Irish strong. There's a funny cross over. Bobby Halton grew up in the
same town Bobby Halton's mother and my mother in mass like nine o'clock on a
Tuesday, and Uh, she'd be like, did your watch rescue me last
night? He's like, and Missus Halton was the one who told my mother,
She's it's really a filthy show, Missus Burke, you know. And
and uh, Bobby and I would laugh about that and love that he was
his father. His father was very instrumental in my family. After my mother
was hit by that accident, and his father worked in a law firm and
and he came in one day and he said to my mother in the hospital.
She was in the hospital for over a year, and he said,
Missus Burke, you're gonna have to talk about suing my mother said what what
and she he said the lawsuit. Now she says, oh, I'm not
suing anybody. He goes, well, missus Burke, you know, and
uh so, uh so my mother goes, oh, it's not a Christian
thing to do. And the joke and the family was Mister Halton said,
well, missus Burke, with all due respect, this has got nothing to
do with the Son of God. You know, got a Ben Frank go
to expression in our family. Somebody go jas face and it's got nothing to
do with us. And again, but so nice people, very nice people.
Do you think that's where possibly you got the itch for them to be
a five in? Okay? So the Bobby Halton, I know, oh
he was a he was a I could not even believe what he was telling
us, Like I couldn't even believe. Well, I'm looking I was looking,
looking looking for this picture. A couple fifteen years ago. I go
online, I want to work a work jacket for the firehouse whatever, and
I said, iddled by Chief Bobby Halton, And I'm looking at the picture.
I'm like, thanks fucking Bobby Halten. So I email Penwell, I'm
like, dar chief, are you with these same? And he emails me
back. He goes, oh, I've been looking at you for years,
Bobby boy, you know. So I was like, look at you,
you know, and uh but I knew so he came out here to the
island on a vacation once. It was it was actually it was Billy golf
at his wife's fiftieth birthday party and this all you know, Dugan and everybody
here at off ire Hall and Halton is there and he's got his you know,
little drink and everything, and I'm looking at him. He goes,
what I remember you and you had head out of your ass. You're like
listening at a grateful dead It was. I couldn't believe that this was the
same guy. Skateboarder right, skateboarder. He was always on it. I
can tell you that he was older than me, but he was always on
the skateboard I can remember that. And uh, but it's just a terrifically,
terrifically great guy. So what what what drought you into the five service?
Then? Well, it was my my friendship with Pat Brown, and
uh, Pat and I started knocking around together like nineteen eighty five, eighty
six. I was a contractor. I quit acting after I got out of
college for like six years and so so I can't even believe that's him.
It doesn't even look like him. Man, the house I'm in right now,
the room I'm talking to you from, was Pat's room. Okay.
What we did was like ten of us from the city would get together.
We come out here. We'd rent a house and and I said to Patty,
I said, you know something, pat you got to leave the island
of fucking Manhattan someday, you know what I mean, So why don't you
throw in fifteen hundred bucks? Uh April, May, June, July,
August, Tomrocto seven months we get the place, you know what I mean.
He's like, yeah, okay, So this was his room and h
I turned it into kind of an office. And uh So on nine eleven,
when he uh was murdered and fell, I figured, know, let
me go back to here, my town. And you know, Patty used
to say, who puts the fucking fires out of here? I mean,
and he was always talking about a conflagration. I'm like, and what like,
there's one goal they're all gonna go. And I'm like, I don't
know, Joe, Jim John, you know, and um, and so
what happened was afterwards when I came after nine eleven, his brother Mike and
I spent some time on the pile, and Mike succumbed to nine eleven cancer
to thirty twenty twenty. This Patton Mike. There's a funny story about that
little metal because Pat gave that to Mike that day had a what's what's the
ribbon for? With the bugle on it. There's a little bugle on that
ribbon, so it's a unit citation, unit citation. So Pat takes one
off, gives it to Mike. We're at the bar and some girl comes
up to Mike. It goes, what's that for? The band? Mike
was a fireman at thirty seven and forty one twenty fifth Street, and he
put himself through um medical school at Albany University, and he used to joke
that being a city fireman was the best summer job he ever had. So,
but you see the two of these guys, they sounded like, you
know, punch drunk Queen's boxes. They were both very, very, very
brilliant. Mike was just like he was a he was an engineering ruman and
he left Grumman to become a city fireman, and guys apparently would fall on
the floor laugh and like why are you leaving? In the city fighter book.
And while he was a fireman, puts himself through medical school and he
becomes a top flight emergency medicine physician for thirty years. He retired out of
Nellis Air Force Base. He was a flight surgeon for them. Uh I
remember the FBI contacted me a bad character witness for him. I'm like,
he's a good guy. So when you left acting for a little while,
Jem, consider become a city fireman. No, not a fireman. No,
never a fireman. Because John Timody was the first deputy chief of Police
in New York City, and we knew the family, the Timmoy family,
and so the consciousness of us as children, we were told by other first
generation, don't become a fireman. There's nothing out of it. That was
the election. Oh yeah, be a policeman. You can get a free
lunch, at least at the firehouse. You can get a free well,
you know. But so anyway, that was My father wanted me to be
a police officer, I'm pretty sure. And he kind of left us alone
just as long as we worked. We always had a job, you know,
putting papers together as a kid six seven years old with ink on my
hands until Wednesday, being no tables, cleaning the church, landscape being lawns,
moss rock, brick shale. We had to put ourselves through school,
which was fine. Um uh, you know, job, job, job,
You're always working. But that was fun because you if you like to
work, it was fun and if you work with good people, it was
a lot of fun. So um so uh yeah, no, I I
stumbled back into acting in nineteen ninety. What made you want to leave though?
Was there any particular reason? Oh? You know, yeah, it
was after my father died. He was in my head and like I could
hear him saying, you know, is this what a real man? You
know, reacting? It was in my head banging around. That guy was
a man's man, right, So I mean, I mean, big shoes,
you know, boiler makers, and and you know he would stare at
you sometimes and you're like what you know, you'd be crying and he's like,
it's like, why are you crying? I'm like, because you're staring.
I mean, I mean so uh. It was old school, you
know, people who came into our home said it was like being in the
nineteen twenties or something. It was very strict and um, but like we
didn't know any better, you know. We worshiped him, and he took
the wind down of my sales when he passed because he was he was just
such a good guy, you know, so you find your way back to
acting, Like, no, it found me. A guy I went to
college with said I'm making a movie. You want to do be in it?
And I was doing I'll never forget this. I was doing a deck
on a brownstone walk up on Astor Place and Broadway downtown. Patty Brown came
over. It was ninety nine degrees. He came upstairs. He goes,
oh, this is great, Bob. I didn't know you did this ship.
And I was like yeah, and like we're putting stringers and we're drilling
it to the walls into the brick using water levels because it's so you know,
tweaked. And he goes, this is beautiful, fucking massive fire has
it. But because he had, like it was always crazy. We had
no permits for this. Was that a client because I want to deck back
here? We're like, yeah, no problem, problem. I mean there's
eight billion. I often wanted to go like pull over and just go upstairs
and eight billion pounds of you know, lumbar lumbar. Yeah, yeah,
twenty two foot As we're passing up, nobody stopped us. So, um,
so what was that movie that's the guy I approach you with? Oh,
it was called The Unbelievable Truth. It took eleven days to shoot.
It was my first film, and he played Josh. Yeah and uh,
and so it was bought by a company. I went back to work in
Brooklyn. I was doing a Brownstone. We were painting, plastering. Me
and my buddy Pauly Schultz. Uh. We did four stories inside. We
gave her a fucking wine seller dug out of an old cold shoot. He
says one day, because you know that would be a wonderful wine cellar.
I'm like, shut the trying to get out of here. So then yeah,
he calls, he says, listen the movie got Boy. You're gonna
be on a plane, Uh doing press. And that was thirty three years
ago. So wow, what do you think your biggest your biggest break was
that made you that kind of put you on the map. That I mean,
because you have a Tombstone. I mean, I gotta left. You
mean, you talk about Tombstone. That's if that's not one of the most
quoted movies in the firehouse. And if you're sitting in the firehouse and somebody
pulls out quote up, you're like, yeah, that was. What was
it like being on the set of that, shooting horses and riding you know,
shooting guns and riding horses. You know, it was Uh, I
was pinching myself. You know, who gets to do movies? Who gets
to be in a western? Uh? You know, I'm looking and I'm
talking with having dinner with Sam Elliott and and you know, uh, all
these other great actors, Val and um uh huckle Berry Well at the at
the shootout at the Okay Corral, I said him, I got you now
you sent him if you do? And then he driels me here. Bill
Paxton goes like this from I'm like shooting. We had fun, we worked,
you know, it was it was one hundred and ten degrees there the
whole time and it's a dry heat. Um, but it was it was
like I'm like, I said, uh, why did I get to do
that? How did I get to do that? It was just it was
awesome. It was awesome to be in a part of it, you know.
So I can't believe that I looked at that when I was looking through
your your list just before. Yeah, that's nineteen ninety three, bro,
I'm not kidding. I had to have watched that movie. It has to
be a hundred times. If it's all, I have to stop it.
It's a rabbit hole. I can tell you that you got any firehouse anywhere
in the country, because I've been in Well, it might not be on,
but there's a tape of it, like two or three of them,
like with dust on them. It was a standard. Uh. A lot
of different stories about that movie. As a matter of fact, the twenty
fourth of June, they're flying me out to a thirtieth anniversary of it.
I'm not even in the goddamn movie to tell you that, you know what
I mean. My son, my son was like six months old. I
said, I'm not going to the premier. I'm not a big fan of
those things. So I sent my Uh, I stayed home with the baby.
He was a few weeks old, and I sent my brother and my
wife and his wife and and he comes back. Fucking Gray movie and I
go really, Oh, he goes, it's gonna be clad. He goes,
you're not, but it's glad what happened? Yeah right they yeah you
guy bro. Yeah. The uh the director got fired after six weeks and
they replaced him with another guy. So this statement. They cut a lot
of the backstory. Frank McClary, my character was the fastest gun historically,
So take Frank first and then cut to me shooting cans and so all of
that was cut out, which was fine with me because Kurt Russell said to
us one day, he goes good news and bad news. The good news
is we're gonna keep shooting. The bad news is, um, everybody should
is cut out of the movie. I was like, well, I gotta
go home, and he goes, no, no, no, we're gonna
stay and keep shooting. So but it was a lot of how he yeah,
totally, totally, No, he's he's a good guy. He's a
solid guy. Um. You know there was uh friendships I made on that
movie that I still have and Bill Paxton being one of them who passed a
couple of years back. Great guy, great guy, funny as hell,
a beautiful guy. I'm in touch with his son, you know, on
a monthly basis. James wonderful young man making his way in acting. And
so you know, one minute you're watching these people in movies and the next
minute you're talking with them, and it's it's that's always been kind of a
surreal, you know thing to me, very much like the funniest service.
It's like, oh, there he is, you know here, you know,
that's get to talk with these guys. Have you ever seen anything like
that? I've never even heard of anything like that. Of that's the guy
when he when what's his name? When he's walking when Crystal Water he's going
out to the creek and uh, what's his name? Bill? What's his
name? Look at that? Look at that we can powers booth. Yeah.
And then after after that, after that shootout, the guys are talking
and he goes, have you ever seen anything like that? He's like,
hell, I haven't even heard it, heard anything. But you did robo
Cop three before that, huh before U get yeah, yeah, that was
ninety Oh boy, it's a big blurred ninety two two. It came out
in ninety three. So they called me and they're like, they want you
to do RoboCop and I'm like why and uh uh, I had done two
like classy independent films. I says, how did they how did they see
me as a robot? For Christ's sake? At this point, I said,
look, Jesus Christ, like anybody could do it. It's like,
what are they being me for? And and they kept saying no because I
looked like, weller a little bit, you do look like if with the
thing on, you look like well yeah, so um so I held out
for like eight months. Now, thank you all. I'm flatted because you
got to watch how you say no. And then all of a sudden,
my wife came home one day and I said, hello, missus robo because
they sent you the number. Oh yeah, I'm doing this. We can
make this work. Maybe we can make this work. I used to call
it humping the garbage can. It was, you know, right, So
let's get to the fire service a little bit. When did you become When
did you want to get involved in? So again? After after we operated,
well, we worked on like trying to find pat trying to find anybody.
One of the things I observed downtown was like by virtue of how many
people you lost, that's where you were on the pile and three truck was
going like right up every night. And so I was standing outside the firehouse
with Pat's brother, Mike, and they said, Mike, what do you
want to do when he goes, I want to go look for Pat?
And he just points him. He goes and you're coming, And I was
like, I got nauseous to tell you the truth I had never Let me
just preface this by way of saying, I hung around with Pat. I
knew, you know, friends of his in the fire service, and I
had zero idea what was involved with the job. I had zero, you
know, And I'm sitting down listening to these guys talk and you know about
pushing lines, taking doors and set the other and I still, I'm a
civilian who hangs out with happens to have friends who are fireman, zero idea
of what's involved in not just any fireman. No, I didn't. I
didn't know that at the time. He thought what I did was nerve racking.
I'm like, kimme, f I can break so um. So you
know, it's twenty years later, I think through osmosis or something that I
did understand that I did pay attention to certain things that he was saying certain
ways that he conducted himself on the fireground, certain ways that he did not
conduct himself. So anyway, yeah, I came back to my town,
I says, will you guys take me? And they're like, how old
you? I said forty one? Yeah, sure, and off I go
to the Suffocanty Fire Academy. Great training. Can't say enough about the instructors
there. I think there a lot of guys from your job who maybe moonlight
and there gentleman, just gentleman, professional. No matter how bad you screw
something up, it's always okay, fellows a couple of things, you know
what I mean. It's it's never like this meaning no, no, no.
And another thing about the fire service for me is the fact that it's
a learning culture, constantly learning, constant. I said to a guy the
other day, honest to god, I said, how are they doing it
now? Because you just come out last year. They goes, oh,
they're doing it. I feel it was Uh. I'm always asking the new
kids, like, how do they do it now? How do they you
know? Whatever it is, whatever task it is, it could be small,
it could be big, um, and you try and keep up on
these things. But at the same time. A lot of times they're switching
things up. It could be something that's benign as you know, opening a
hydrant and you know universal Oh no, mister bark, they're opening it at
the hallway and oh um you know, so you have to like speaking yeah
so um uh and and you know, keeping up the training with the young
guys um uh uh. Not only are we volunteer, we are seasonal and
we are chronically understaffed. So uh you know yeah yeah, but here like
in the winter, like I said, a seasonal, so you have a
good part of the membership who goes back to wherever they're primary domini. So
for the audience, you're on Fire Island, right, Ocean Beach ostensibly,
yeah, Ocean beach. Which is I mean, is there's one bridge to
Fire Island? No, there's two. There's one of the east and one
of the west, but we only use the one on the west. How
many companies are on five? Five companies which consist of what any engine companies?
A lot of companies, but no ladders operations at all, zero ladder
ladder, no ladder operations at all. You're conducting yourself as a truck company.
And is a subject to when you're due. When you come in,
Uh, you'll be tasked. You know, you will not be able to
I mean you get up on the roofnext you shoot. You're a ladder company,
you're you know, you're a tower ladder um. So you have to
be ready to um to you know, whatever your task is, to be
able to perform it um subject to when you would do that. We're bob,
So we did both. Well, yeah, absolutely absolutely. Let me
just also preface that by way of saying very straightforward here, we don't do
mvas. I mean we have car fires, we have truck fires, things
like that, but you're not doing um. What you are doing is straightforward,
you know, wood frame, balloon construction, residential taxpayers with thirty winds
every day. Well, you know, a guy said one time, since
you know, burke Win, does your size up? Begin? I sit
out here when I opened my fucking eyes in the morning, you know,
because you gotta know where are you going to lay in? You know?
Um? And where is your water? Some of the municipalities here have shitty
water, some have We have very good water in ocean beach. Will will
you know, stretch five inch half a mile sometimes to you know, bring
better water with you. Um. So there's it's it's you know, I've
been reading lately. It's very good things about the fire Service on you know,
these these website. And one was like, you know, you have
to be an athlete, but you never get to know when the game is
played, you know. And I like that. I get that you have
to you know, Um, well that's all pre planned and and training and
drilling, you know, but here we practice short man drills. Three guys
getting as massive amount of water going as possible, stretching lines for other people
who are coming in. I have a lot of exposure problems. I would
imagine back to conflagration. I mean, everything's a small wood bungalow right or
something like this, massive you know, plastic boxes being built. Um,
they are daunting because we don't have the tower operations. So you're wondering,
am I going to spend time throwing a ladder there? Or am I gonna
just save his house? You know what I mean? And with three guys
on a windy February night, you don't get a lot of choices. You
have to make quick choices about um, you know, risk and reward.
Those type of assessments. What's the population in the summer and the winter.
I couldn't really tell you. It's like I've heard figures like, uh,
six hundred seven hundred in the winter when COVID hit a lot a lot of
people came out um uh and in the in the in the summertime, I
actually don't know what the numbers are. You have a lot of day trippers.
We have two als and less is UM and we do a lot of
metavacs. Also, uh, if you get jammed up, you know,
designation wise, you know, uh, I don't really know what the designations
are. Just in terms of your injury. You're gonna go out by helicopter.
If we drive you down the beach. If you don't have a broken
neck, you're gonna get one. So you're put in the helicopter and you
go to UH you can go to Stony Brooks outside UM anywhere that has a
trauma center. And you were talking about mutual aid before. Who would be
first coming over for mutual If it's east of the district um Ocean Bay Park,
Point of Woods, if it's west of the district, Fair Harbor,
Salt Air Kisman and you know, actually Chief I'd rather Captain Bertucci said,
once he goes, we're all five different, five different engine companies. And
Bertucci from eighteen yeah, rescue four always in fact, if Captain Rescue four
wasn't he No, oh no, captain of eighteen Right. I was in
Proby school with him too. He's out there by you. He's about three
miles west of me. Get out of here. He should have got it
started a gail company. Yeah, you had the perfect hair. That guy
my favorite. Ask about the first day when he wore the wrong shirt in
Provy school. Next time you say, wow, he's never gonna forget that
one. Bro. The funds, they say, I have this ferry.
Yeah yeah, yeah, I'll be taking it, uh all of July in
August because private vehicles have to be off the eye. Right, you're probably
not doing any work right now. There's a writer strike, right yeah,
um, you know it is what it is? They uh they come about
that, Um yeah, because they're going to be doing a way with writers.
You just type in what you want to the computer and the AI guys.
Right now, that's all I keep hearing about, is this AI stuff.
I'm not too sure what's going on. It's out of the bag.
It's uh, it is, it's bad. It's bad. Won't you won't
need writers? Hearing a lot about this, and it's almost like I could
pump in uh every episode of Sopranos. The Sopranos ended. They're all at
the dining room, the diner table, and you could say to the computer,
hey, give me the next episode. Club. What would be a
great way to have this show recrank itself, reconstitute itself. You press enter
that that computer, that program will give you pographs and everything, scripts,
everything. At some of the standing what was your favorite? What was your
favorite? Uh? Movie? Did we ask him that or any did?
I didn't really have a favorite. I liked different ones for different reasons.
Um. I like to be honest, historical films where you're actually playing somebody
that actually lived. Then you get to research the person. You're either gonna
try for a to duplicate the person, or or you're gonna go off on
your own. When I did um. General Maddis in Generation Kill. You
know, he has a high pitched voice, very specific, and the dialogue
for the scenes they have called for somebody barking orders and being you know,
very what the audience would think is marine like in terms of command presence.
So I didn't really do an imitation of him, per se. I did
my own, but I thought, you know, marine Corps general leading the
first Marine Division should sound like. And that was scary because I had I
think ten or fifteen of the guys who were actually in the first Marine Division
standing there like this. Go, okay, they do that a lot,
right, they have well, they had consultants, but the guy who wrote
it brought a lot of his buddies over. There was one particular Marine Corps
Recon sniper named Rudy Reyes Um. This guy's actually on the calendar of Marine
Corps Recon. I mean, he's just an incredible specimen. You know,
X amount of confirmed kills um and and we're still in touch. He actually
came out he had to the beach to a warrior appreciation event we had and
um uh so yeah, and and and and so certain you know roles that
where you have to um uh, you know, research and historically it's always
interesting. So he did seven years on rescue. Me like, how yeah,
what was did they they know you a fireman? Did they approach you?
I wasn't uh, I was coaching third base. I remember in Little
league in my phone rang and it was like, oh, they want you
to do rescue me and I go, oh, oh Dennis Leary, Oh
okay. So the first um they told me you're playing his cousin. I
said, oh yeah, and he goes it's the Gavin family. They're Irish
and yeah, he goes, you're a priest and I said, minute hall
on hall of fun. So Dennis we got on the phone and uh,
Dennis says, you'll be a priest for the first season. And I said,
you throw me a fucking carvedball, all right? You know, oh
the character does this now? And I'm like, nah, there's a character
does not do that. So he was true to his word. You know.
I left the priesthood after the first season, and then I just became
like, uh, like kind of the family Consigliari. If Irish family is
going to have a consign Yeah. I actually met uh uh Dennis. We
went to he had contacted I guess through the f d N Y. He
wanted to do just for the twenty anniversary for the squads obvious. Yeah,
and when we you know a lot of the squads I think five five out
of the Seven lost everybody, and so he wanted to do something about that.
So he got in touch with a friend of mine at downtown and then
they contacted me, and then I actually went to go sit with him and
his son and yeah, yeah, and we were bullshitting. He actually took
us after for lunch and we you know, I was telling him some of
the stories that I had seen and what I heard, and he's like,
this is going to be great. I am looking for you know, I'm
going to do this. You know, I want to do this. We
had a year. Yeah, this was so yeah, it was like twenty
and then sure a shit COVID hit and that's kind of why it didn't get
done. And then a little while after that, I had contacted him to
try and see if I talked to his son mostly. I guess he handles
most of his stuff and he's been pretty cool at me. I haven't really
called him or texted him, Like you said, time goes by probably like
six months, but he said maybe we'll get him on. But I guess
then he started a new show. Right now, he's doing something that really
took off, I think, or something like that. I don't even know.
Dennis. Did he do anything. I actually did a thing with him
called a race. It was a pilot. It didn't get picked up.
I'm not even sure what he's doing now. I didn't even ask him.
Yeah, I'll tell you one thing. Let me say one thing about him.
After the what's the called storage fire, his cousin Jeremiah Lucy, Jerry
Lucy, who has his children, are on the job in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Now, so Dennis starts this foundation, He's another guy actor doesn't have
to do it. How many how many firefighter foundations can you name that are
run by actors since nineteen ninety nine? You can't. So I always respected
that about him. And then when nine to eleven came around, he was
kind of poised to, like, you know, raise money and help families
and do whatever he needed to do. And then he got in with the
FDNY. But you know this, this many years later, this many years
later, Um, no mission fatigue. He keeps up in the anti Yeah,
no doubt, you know what I mean. And I always respect that
because you know, so many times after you know, uh, you know,
especially with veterans, you know, oh, everybody falls asleep, everybody
forgets after nine eleven. Everybody's on the west side Highway holding up and then
all of a sudden, you know, it's gone. So he is not
a guy who does that. A couple of years ago he said, uh,
he goes, you know, people write a check for the f D
and why foundation for the Leary Foundation. He goes, there's nothing to that.
Any rich guy can write a check. He goes, Let's bring them
to the rock, let's put them, let's have them push a line,
Let's have them you know, awesome. And and I'm telling you, guys
say that it's a lot of fun those stuff. It's well, I think
it's a good morale booster. The guys seem to enjoy it, the instructors,
and they're complete gentleman professionals. They get a kick out of it.
Yeah. But uh and he raises a lot of money. And uh so
did that stuck seven years ago? The firefighter child's doing it that long.
It's well, that's just the challenge. He would have these events. Uh,
you know up there he put several building was like five million, The
mobile command post was seven hundred and fifty thousand. I got a call,
I think it was a guy named Jimmy Brennan and a guy named Bobby Bobby
Higgins who were working at the I can't remember it was then we called me
but they put a flash over a simulator and they said, hey, Burke,
what's up. I said whatever, and he goes, it's broke.
It's broke. I said, what's broke? He goes the simulator and I
said, so, what are you calling me for it? He goes,
uh, well, who has the service contract? Like I don't fucking know
what. We had to go out and raise money too. We never nobody
ever bought a service contract for the flash over simulator. But here again.
Uh you know when Joe uh deepon auto uh passed away, Joey and you
know, Chief deepon Auto calls me and he says, we'd like you to
be the the celebrity. And I go, Chief, I tell you whatever.
I tell everybody. If I'm your celebrity, you're already in fucking trouble.
And then I, you know, I had a further talk and I
said, yeah, I'll see what I can do. So my instinct was
to call Dennis and I said, listen, you gotta give these guys some
money to start the foundation up. And it's firefighter Survival and Dennis is like,
no, push off, you know, hes back. People give me
money from my foundation, I don't give it a you like. So anyway,
you know, Chief D wrote a grant for months and months, eighteen
months of grant writing. Because Dennis was not running his own foundation. It
was being run by an outfit called Innovative Philanthropy, and he had it.
You know, Chief D has to write a grant for these people. So
Dennis actually decided, you know, he said, well, we've approved some
money and I'm not gonna say what he is here, but it was substantial.
So I tell chief you know, tell we're talking about it. And
he said it's X amount every every year, each year for ten years.
And we were like my own whoa? You know, it was good.
So the way I always describe it is, um, you know, Dennis
has been instrumental in buying material uh you know, equipment, Uh you name
it. Boats. We were stored fourteen to twenty two firehouses in New Orleans.
I did five trips down there. Uh wow, I didn't know.
Oh yeah, And um I brought my son. He was thirteen. They're
like, how old is he? Because he had to be sixteen. I
said, he's sixteen. His mother's on the phone. Is it moldy down
there? Allergy? Like? I put you my son. He's got the
Uh, he's got the cutters. And we sent him out in the backyard
with the cutters and he's he's breaking cinder blocks and I said, that'll keep
him busy. And this guy, Kevin Parent, he was the commissioner of
the Fire Service. He comes at the back. He's like, who are
you any way? Uh so uh leary where he as he buys material?
Uh. Chief DS Foundation has become the shock troops. You know what I
mean. You can have all the thermal images and all the you know,
doors and tools your life, but unless you have uh guys teaching and instructing,
and you know Chief D puts together. It's like learning you know,
baseball from the Yankees and very effective. Uh and and and again another guy
who didn't sit back, you know who could have ums no nonsense too,
you know, yeah, no, there's very the I wrote this word down.
The the friction coefficient is very fucking low. He's a great guy.
I can't tell you how much I admire that man. And you know,
uh, that guy man he is. He lives and breathes it. Joey
was kind of, I guess, helping out with the Suffolk County Fire Academy
one night and I was over there and I was getting my classes and those
things. You had to go to a different firehouse to get each of the
the training, you know, So it was ropes, knots, and ladders
one night and he me and this guy I was with, and he goes.
Joey comes out. I don't know who he is, but I know
he's like an elite guy, just the way he's conducting himself. Swag.
Yeah. And he goes, tie a halfitch tie, clowitch tie, a
bowling tie, a Beckett Ben. Then I'm like killing it with my all
my dyslexia. I'm sweating and I'm killing every knot and he goes, where
are you from? I said, ocean beach, tying up fucking boats your
whole life. So I was like, whoa, you know I got past
that guy. Well that's what he said, which is not true. I
mean, I just knew those four knots, but I remember him specifically.
And then when you know, after that particular Sunday, in that particular operation,
uh, Dennis went to work and uh, you know, uh,
they they had an evening honor in the fireman and who were involved in that
day, and and and again. You know, uh you can lay back,
you can sit back and do nothing, but uh, the Demon Auto
Foundation has exponentially increased the fantastic I mean fantastic. These guys don't have to
you know, I mean you know, but it's so effective to training.
And I said to Dennis Dennis a couple of years ago we were at the
Rock and he goes, oh, we've trained eighteen hundred fireman. I said,
no, you haven't. And I got my phone and got my calculator,
said you're trained about eight hundred thousand. He's like, what are you
talking about? So you don't understand the fire service. If if two guys
come to Chief D's seminar, they go back and train five five guys who
trained five guys. And I said, so do the math And he's like,
all right, never. So you know it's it's very guys are going
home, I believe because of the deep in UNO foundation. Yeah, just
get on the job, brot the job. I say this to Louie every
year around nine to eleven, like everybody throws around the old you know,
never forget, never forget, never forget, you know. But it's guys
like you and Dennis and Chief d and all these other guys who truly,
you know, make those words count. And we can't tell you, like
Louie and I, we lost nineteen guys from a firehouse. So that's something
that's never gonna go away. So it's guys who actually put them money with
their mouth is really you know, it means a lot to us. And
on top of that, if you're one of those guys, you're on the
top floor and it gets crappy and you don't have a rope, you know,
oh you know, you only got one shot at that, you know.
And we practiced that. We practiced when we got the ropes back.
Um, you know, we practiced all different ways. Right. It wasn't
just you know, go back, you know the way the job taught you.
It was go back, you know, to hear tie off. You
know you don't have that time, you know what I mean. It was
put your tool in the corner, click clip in, roll out out the
window. And we were out the window. You can have five guys go
on one hook, you know, we practiced every scenario because yeah, you
knew you weren't going to have the time to do that, so right.
But we really, like I said, Bob, we really appreciate guys like
you Listen, it's a it's an honor like you talk about you know,
sports, sports heroes are really um you know, uh, show business,
Oh wow, that guy's you know, when I understood I started to interact
with people in the in the fire service, not you know, PD,
I don't really know, but the fire Service. It was just like it
was amazing to me. You know, the skills, uh, the perishable
skills that you have to come you know, all of the tasks. I
remember when Pat was studying for lieutenant and I'm like, what the And he
had a pile about the books and I was like, so what are you
What are you responsible for on the test? He said everything? And I
was like, how are you gonna like get that amount of material into your
head? And then there's captains and you know, all these tests. Um,
so you got to respect. You know, people want somebody knowledgeable and
you know, uh, you dial nine one one in this country, somebody's
coming. You don't want them to be a schnook. You want them to
know what he's doing? Yeah, how did the how does Hollywood you know?
I mean, I'm sure most of the people know that you're a five
and right. How does that play out with them? Do they how do
they react to that? DoD they say anything? Or was it? Uh?
Yeah, you know that's a hard question. And some just yes and
no. You know what I mean. If they know, they know,
if they want to ask something, they can ask. Um. There was
a couple of mornings on different jobs where I went to work the night before,
let's say, and you know, didn't get any sleep. So answer
like the answer to the question is somebody and their money's worth that? At
me? The next time? Uh, you know, on on rescue me.
A couple of times it's like you got a fireplace at home, you
smell like shit and um uh there And you know it was inevitable my wife,
something big would be coming up. I'd be leaving for Ireland, I'd
believe, and we'd always get you know, banged out. Yea. And
I remember once I came home from Africa. I was there for months and
I didn't sleep. I'm gonna get turned around. I haven't been asleeping forty
eight hours you know, boom, that's when you're gonna go. So uh
uh. But here it's very you know, it's it's modest, it's straightforward.
Um. Uh, you're just doing for your community. Uh. We
have very good, dedicated members in the Ocean Beach Fire Department. And you
know, everybody I think tries their best. Uh. You're coming to a
place where you're supposed to be vacationing and yet you're giving your time and your
energy to doing this. And so it's that's impressive to me. How are
you guys doing with getting new members? Like you got a lot of young
guys coming in. Yeah, it's tight right. Um. You know it's
funny because we have one particular young man I'm thinking about. This guy is
just a home run, you know, like I would send them to a
truck company on you a job tomorrow. He's just one of those hits,
Like he's a nineteen forties throwback. He just gets it and he doesn't really
talk too much to me. Perfect he just out shut and get to work.
I stepped aside his captain just to leave a spot, and he got
voted up. And so he's a great young guy. But the numbers are
bad. And then it's not like you got to spoon feed them to keep
them. But you shouldn't. You should talk nice to them. You know.
It's like, um, it's a whole new you guys know, it's
a whole world. And you know, I've decided I have adjectives. I
don't have pronouns. I have adjectives. I smart, funny, as fucking
good. Look at that. That's a common denominator across the country. Though,
that they're not getting to people, they're not getting I think a lot
of it, too, is the fire training. A lot of it is.
You know, Johnny doesn't want to go to college. He wants to
stay in his town. He's going to be a mechanic. He's gonna make
a good living. But now he's gonna go to a firefighter one. You
know what I mean. It's a lot of classrooms. So he wasn't counting
on that, you know. And I think they lose a lot of guys.
Uh. I think you should be trained for what your district holds,
you know what I mean. And then some obviously, but and then osha
fhi mahomeless and everybody's piling on if you break your fingernail, they're gonna send
you for nine hours on how not to break your fingernail. You know.
Um kind of fire service, Yeah, absolutely, the fire service, the
jettler kind of fire yes, yeah, kind of gentler. Yeah, how
did you adapt to the firehouse kitchen table when you when you first went to
the fire apart? They're because you know and that you have to realize that
that doesn't translate to everyday people, right, So you have to leave that
in the flyhouse, like with your other job. Because my wife tells me
all the time you're not in the fly house, that that that's not funny
here, you know. So yeah, I'm sure you have to leave that
in the firehouse. You can't bring that to you know, the Hollywood scene,
right because they won't get it. Bro I'm a volley. I could
bring it anywhere. I could pitch it moan like, you can't be believe
um, you know with me, it's a funny thing because when I started,
uh, we go on like benign you know, down power lines,
order or gas this that the other and the homeowner to be looking at us
coming in and be like that's the guy from special thing. You know you
don't talk. If you don't talk to them, then you're a shnook.
You know, used to ye oh hello, yes, oh hello, you
know, yes I live here and yes you know. So then you have
FI him and other members going, you know, what are you back there?
Your bullshit? And now we're twenty minutes. Guy said, well,
you were the one who told them that that was me. So now we
have a thing. It's a kind of a goat to uh. You know,
it's like, hey, this isn't that the guy from It's like noah,
no, no, no, he looks like them, looks like brother.
So I'm a good wrap it up. Yeah, God, let's look
at some of those fire photos. This guy goes some fire out there.
Bro, all right, we got this. This is a good one.
Here. Give us a little description on this one, Bob. But I'm
pretty sure that was a nor easter. There was sixty eight mile an hour
winds. We were called in as uh oh No, that was in our
district. That was the east end uh in a town called Ocean Bay Park.
It was a particularly bad fire because of the you know, we all
had embers fall on our heads. But very rarely do I get them smacking
me at fifty miles an hour. Uh So I was down when to that
one we held the exposure. Uh, we had shitty water because everybody north
and up wind of the fire was killing it, you know, and I
was asking for some of those elements to shut down that that would inform our
pressure. They were thief and water. Right here was another one. That's
the one that Monto gave you the heads up on right right binoculars. Um,
yeah, that's one structure that the exposure is starting to uh to go.
Uh. I had a two and a half in stretch. I responded
from my home to that fireground. I actually I used to do that back
of the day. Nobody really bothered me. Um, but we've I've since
curtailed that type. I had gear at home. Um so. Uh.
That is in a town called Fair Harbor. We were coming as mutual aid
actually Fair Hub. It's funny because my my family friend house burned down.
I think the same picture. It almost burnt his house down was right next
stoor their housetown next store. Was crazy. Oh, I think that's the
house that look it might be because like I tell you, when it goes
here, it goes awfully goes. They have those big a problems. They
have access problems there because it's a boardwalk that cuts through most of those houses
and then you ain't getting yeah down there. So all right. I tried
to implement last year was the minute man with two hundred or three hundred footloads
you just take off if you want it would call a deck bag. It's
an inch of three quarter another bunch of lengths you can connect quick. Everything
is speed speed speed speed. And at nighttime it's dark as hell out here.
Lots of times you're operating in sand. Like I said, you're gonna
get a large volume of fire for a good couple of minutes, and as
they say, every fire eventually burns itself out. But you know, basically
it's uh relay operations. Should you have a bad hydrant or bad water and
then quick water, short man, get it stretched, knock it down,
um and exposure. How does the wife feel about you being a five?
And like did she ever say and you're like, listen, no, we're
good dude. You know you don't really got to do this. If somebody
says something to her like meat turn and says, oh your fucking husband,
you know, it's like then I'm like, then I have a problem.
You know. Um, I can't even say what she says. Um,
No, she knows. She knows my relationship with Pat, she knows my
fire service is all dedicated to his memory. Um, you know too,
I about I. Uh, I don't know. I I it's a very
hard thing to say. You know. It's like I got Uh. It
seemed to me to be the next right thing to do. Do you know
what I mean to take up? Because why should it be Jim and Joe?
And you know why I'm here. I'm able bodied. Let it be.
It's the way our country started. Uh, sixty five seventy percent of
the country of all these Uh. Guy said to me a couple of well,
all firement of volumes, So just get paid. I'm like, okay,
you but uh, but you know there's great truth in it. And
you know, uh, sometimes you get frustrated with you know, people's level
of commitment or or able bodiedness or but you know, listen, people turn
out, they turn out. Everybody has their place, and you just hope
nobody gets hurt because that can happen. Then fire here can kill you just
as quick as it doesn't. It's impervious. It doesn't care. And and
here you just like if you push, Like, we had a fire,
uh, you know, two different fires a block away from each other.
One was extremely dangerous, but not a large body of fire. They went
in the back of the house into the kitchen because they saw the smoke.
I go in the camera's work and there's a charge line ready. Everything in
the kitchen is melted, the stove, the microwave, it's hot, and
I go, there's no fire here, get the fun So we rededicate the
line out the front door. Take the front door. The fire is underneath
the stairway. It's been burning for hours. Apparently the Wayne Scott in this
house was so thick that it was holding it. Yeah, it was holding
it. So it was burning enough three stories. We knocked the fire down
at the bottom of the stairs and then we work we have good stairs.
We work our way up the three stories and then we're pulling ceilings as we
go. Um. So that was a dangerous fight. And then there was
another fire was a large volume of fire. But we're outside. It's an
exterior operation. It's like, just nobody get hurt, nobody tripped, nobody
fall, nobody, You know, because you're not going into this thing.
You know there's there's nobody in the house. Um, yeah, absolutely,
And you know what, that's all I say. Yeah, I'll tell you
the first thing about Patty Brown h the first fire I ever pushed. I
was a couple of months two things. I was a couple of months out
of the School of the Training Academy and we got a call and it's it's
really you know, it's a residential structure, a single family and uh,
but it's blown out a couple of windows. And he is Billy Goldfetter,
who comes out here to vacation and he's like this, you know, and
I'm telling you And I said, hey, chief, how are you doing
it? And he was a seminar. The next day he goes, how
are you doing? And I'm faking up the first line and uh, And
I said to him, a little performance pressure. Under pressure goes, I'll
get the funk out of here. If so, I don't think we have
to back up. But it's really banking down. It's very hot. Now.
I'm like, twenty seconds later, I think maybe I won't push this.
This is my first push. And I remember masking up and I remember
thinking I didn't sign on for this, And then I remember Patty Brown's voice
came with. He goes, this is exactly what you fucking signed on for.
Yea, you know, and I thought, oh shit, So now
down we go. We operate for maybe three four minutes, knocking down.
It's it's all good, and you know, uh so yeah, golfing.
I was there at my first fire, and then the next day he gives
the seminary very aggressive a tackle, you know, but it is what it
is. You're doing for your community, and you're just hoping nobody gets home.
And you know, again, the only thing I did at that far
was what what I was trained to do. Do you know what I mean?
Mask up properly, size up properly. I looked at a guy who
was a beautiful member of our department. He could fart and get your watered,
this guy, and uh, and so we were ready to go.
Now you just got to do what you were trained to do. And uh
it's funny because you're an actor. You're like, how did I get here?
But at the same time, uh, you know, then you get
a little bit of the bug and you say to yourself, Okay, this
can be done. Safely, you can be done assertively and um so then
my wife says to me, why you do like what what I says?
Well, if I it and we didn't operate like that, we'd be putting
out half to half to get better, to go to work for hard for
a few minutes and see what you accomplished it is. I mean, you
start doing it if you, like you said, if you get the mug.
I mean, I was just gonna ask you I was doing it.
I would do anything else. There's nothing else I would rather do it.
And that's what I was just gonna ask you, other than doing it because
you know Patty's you know influence. Do you enjoy doing it? Is that?
Do you? I like the training. I like drilling. I like
learning new stuff. I like being successful. When I started the fire service
training, I was forty one years old. I did not want to be
unsuccessful at things. I'm tucking forty one, bro, I know how to
do this. I didn't know how to do it, you know what I
mean? And that was like a weird feeling, you know what I mean.
I'm not a mechanical person. Um I'm six, I'll be sixty three
years old. They're like, well, you're gonna start, you know,
being a show for them, Like you don't want me trying to get water?
And I know my limitations. I'll try it. And if some of
the guys are listening now, they have proof I said that while I'm still
able bodied. You know, it's it's it's a weird thing. You can
go to the Fire Academy and you're doing an evolution and somebody goes, hey
Bob. One of the instructors, Hey Joe, and he says, why
don't you let the young guys take it? We are the young guys,
you know. So, uh, you know, there's no doubt it's a
young manager job. I often wonder, you know, you guys know you
got on jobs where you're operating at eighty percent to your physical capacity and then
the fire changes and it calls for one hundred percent. Now you gotta go
one hundred percent, and then it costs for one hundred and ten percent,
you know what I mean. And you're like, wait a minute, I'm
going to have a massive heart attack here if I just keep this. And
um, so that's why that's another reason to stay in shape. You know,
you definitely definitely have to be in shape. You know. You know
what's so funny that you say that is because when I think back when I
got on the job, Kevin got on the job twenty gonzol, twenty three
years old. I got on the job. There was you could not stop
me. Right, I would be the first guy in I was going to
be the first guy in the back room. I was going to be wherever
nobody was going to be. Right. And then as time got you know,
went on, you know, I ten years later, after nine to
eleven, I saw guys die. We had the Father's Day fire, you
know, you know, Kevin was at the Father's Day Fire. We go
through all the stuff. Guys are dying all over the place. And then
I become a lieutenant and now I'm working one of the busiest companies on the
job in New York City, in Brooklyn, and all of a sudden,
now I'm like, no, no, no, no, hold on one
second, let's not do that whole hold on a second. You know.
Maybe, and I was still aggressive, but I found myself watching out more
for everybody else except myself. Right, And then towards the end of the
career, I was coming up twenty six, twenty seven, years even for
myself, like I felt like I was more concerned, not more concerned,
but I was somewhat concerned about I don't want to die at the end,
you know what I mean, I don't want you know, I was still
aggressive and I was still doing the job definitely, since you know, my
kids were older now like early on I had no kids, but now I
got a family. I got kids. But that's on a job. I
was getting paid that I could leave. You're you're not in that, you
know, I say all the time the volleys. You know, you're sixty
three, You're still I'm not going to fires anymore, But you're still doing
it and you still, like you said before, which was the key to
the whole thing, it's a perishable you know idea. You cannot slow down,
you cannot stop learning. You cannot because that one time you don't do
the right thing, it's gonna bite you in the s and you can get
killed. Just like even when you do the right thing, you could still
get killed. But if you're not learning and keeping up on it, you
could still you're definitely gonna get killed. That was one of the quotes of
Patti Brown. You can do this job. Absolutely right way still get killed.
Absolutely. There's a humility that comes with this job too. I I
you know, to your point of being a boss, even you know that
your member go home, Uh you know, I mean the responsibility, that's
another skill. How do I you know, how do I go to sleep
at night knowing that I have the responsibility to these members in my hands.
Some people don't think them hout it. Yeah, some people just think to
awake at night thinking about you know, uh, the building inspection and pre
plan and training and drilling tomorrow. You know, so you know, you
have to finance it all and make it smooth and out here. It's like,
because you never know who's gonna show up who you're making an assessment very
quickly of what you think you can accompany. You might if you had you
know, this member and that member and this member, you'd really be able
to But maybe you don't have that member that night, and you know,
so you have to make an assessment very quickly. It was I think I've
said this in the show. I think it was Dan Murphy, Big Murphy
from Rescue two. He had said to me when I was first promoted,
and he gave this analogy and it always stuck with me, he said.
Becoming a boss in the fire service is like, first you're a fireman.
So the first analogy is you're going to the beach with your friends, right,
so everybody's kind of on their own, right. You bring your own
food, your own beer, You got you cool or your chair. You
want to go into water, you go into water. You want to go
to bathroom, You go to the bathroom. You want to go take a
nap, You take a nap. When you get promoted to become a boss,
that's like you going to the beach with your young kids. Now you're
like, you got to look out for the look out for the ripe water
into you need some Tannloh, she's burning. You need to get some tannlo
And all of a sudden you're worried. Yeah, everything else you don't eat
the whole day. You get burnt because you put some tannotion on. You
don't get a nap in, right, I mean, it's just how it
is. And it's that was a perfect analogy. Like I think it was
murpht and Rescue too. Yeah, that is that is plastic, bro.
Yeah, that is so funny. Right, you know what about like from
doing this show. I mean, Louis and I are are FDNY centric,
but from doing this show for the last three years, we really have gained
a lot of respect for volunteers because they do it with a hell of a
lot less and they're doing it on their own time. Like we go,
there is the FDY and we'll beat it out with manpower, right, we'll
just beat the shit out of this. I don't even know. Yeah,
guys don't know who's showing up, how many guys are coming, you know
what they're gonna get. It's I've got newfound respect for volunteers, and this
country is volunteer you know. Yeah, Um, I'll never know what it's
like to have seventy five guys out in the street, like if they've come
up, they're asking, um, but uh you know uh. Pat used
to say it, you know Pat Brown when he when he live out here
and he says, well, there you one thing about this place. He
says, if this place gets going FDN, y ain't coming, you know,
So yeah, I mean it is. I watched Base Show Fire Department
the other day operate at a turnover, you know, and I'm telling you,
I mean, you know, bang bang boom. Uh. It all
depends on the leadership and the commitment, and a lot of times it's it's
absolutely extraordinary to have somebody from your job who's in your volunteer department. I
know there's a lot of members from your job who are you know, and
you exponentially get just such great instruction. We had a member from your job
who was a chief of ours at one time. So you just you know,
you want to conduct yourself as as you know, as professionally as possible
and get the job done because again, you know, uh, you can't
say well, you know, you know, uh, Jimmy's a florist in
real life. He didn't really know how to take a doy. Yeah,
you can't expect him to take a doy. You know, it's like fu
kidding me, you know what. I didn't want flowers. I wanted to
do so anyway, I never thought about that. The chief person at Blockbuster
the full time and now he's the chief, well that was like saying private
Ryan, right, he was a teacher or something. He was the captain
and the crew. I never thought about that. Yeah, I don't say
if it don't be act, I can do it. Hey, the guy
with the nozzle. He was in the Yeah, yeah, he was a
toomstone. He took a shot that I asked that robot copy. I've always
been actually very grateful that I got to see this part of life and have
this service. A lot of people, you know, they want to help
and they want to do something. Nobody knows what to do, do,
you know what I mean? And everybody talks a pretty good game, and
they had very good intentions. But to have come to that point in my
life and be able body to be able to do it was really an honor.
And I was very happy and and and it's never lost on me,
you know what I mean. It was a wonderful saying I just saw recently.
It says, you know, uh, the fire Service is one of
the last honorable bastions in this country. One of us represents all of us.
Act accordingly, and I you know, I I subscribe to that very
much, Act accordingly, you know what I mean? And um, and
just knowing getting to know like again, baseball players, football, dinner,
fucking nobody. Oh you're an actor, Oh yeah yeah, but meeting guys
from you a job, it's just very strange. It's a different. Um,
Uh, like a different context. You shake a guy's hand who went
to work in the nineteen sixties and seventies, Oh my god, it's like,
oh shit. You know, it's like this guy is saying at the
gym and eating granola, he fucking went to work. You know. He
absolutely questioned like a bug. So that's fascinating to me, that type of
Uh. We do this show because we get to talk to these guys.
Listening. Listening to these guys, I can't even That's why I'm sitting there
to my wife and I I'm like my stomach arts, and it's like,
what's the matter, Like these guys want to talk to me. I might
owe one of the money. I don't know why do want to? So
said up, But no, I I take it. I take it seriously.
The fire service. I try not to take myself very seriously, but
um, but I take I take it seriously. I do. And I
would leave that for the other members to say about me, um and my
service. Uh I hope. I I take it seriously and have been you
know, good to the new members and always trying to you know, train
them up as well as possible, and you know, I give them every
edge you know because pre sued. You know, a lot of us age
out and it's a really hard thing. I don't even know how guys from
your job, I you know when they say things like they taught me everything
except had to retire, you know what I mean, I can I can
understand the gap. The you know, people in the military say, but
you know, he might have one tour or two tours. Uh, not
even come into the life in that situations that you guys have. So it's
really just um uh again, like with the military. In the fire service,
you know, you guys have that careers twenty thirty, you know,
thirty nine, forty one years, you don't find. You might find.
My brother just retired with forty five years five yeah, but retire out of
it was a deputy chief in the forty eighth division. Yeah wow. And
he has the same the same act. Accordingly, that's one of his biggest
act. Like a professional, he says all the time. Just be a
professional. Drives me nuts. Yeah, you know, guy, opened up,
guy, you know, not paying attention. You know, it's like
a dog. You know, it's like you look at that where your box
is, where your addresses. You never take your eyes off of it,
and and but Burke, it's just an automatic fire on. It doesn't matter
because someday it won't be and you'll you'll you'll need that focus. So there's
just these little things in the culture that are i think getting lost because if
you start talking culture with people, they don't want to hear that part of
that. But that's the glue. I think um that there's no doubt about
that. Ye holds it together. And you know, I'm not a buff
per se. I wouldn't say I'm a buff, but I'm fascinated by it
and I'm very interested in it. You know, you see guys like Stockton
or Gary or Baltimore going to work. This is h I'm always uh pointing
this out there. He's got, you know, Detroit, this one account
on on and these guys are like I'll tell you, they're one pace and
they're getting the job done. Nobody's running around like scream. You know,
Uh, Bob, I saw a video. I think we've had a few
Detroit guys on that were absolutely incredible in their seventies incredible. There was a
video of a guy and I've said this on the show where it's I think
it's taken from a cross the street, like from the roof looking down,
and it's a brick building. The whole this fire out every window. There's
no buildings on the side of it. It's got to be eighty feet deep,
the whole first floor. This fire out, ten windows on both sides.
The guy exactly what you said. He takes the line off. He
gets up to the front door and there's like a you know, ap plywood
there. He's by himself, Wow, by himself. The guy's coming around
pumping you know, it comes the water, pries off to call the the
plywood. You see him, you know, just test it, gets down,
puts his mask on, like you said, a whole hump thing.
All of a sudden, you see the first two windows, white smoke coming
out. Fire coming out there, white smoke coming out. The guy goes
to eighty feet he goes all the way to the back like he was by
himself. I mean, got another cup. But he shows up. You
know, a couple guys get off and they get up on a line probably,
but I mean to start out by yourself, like like you said.
But that's a guy who's been doing that consistently. It speaks to the volume
of work they're getting to do. Oh yeah, no doubt. I mean
no doubt. That's the other thing that freaks me out sometimes, you know,
when you say things like you know, I'm not even gonna say it,
but when you don't go to work a lot, you know, that
can freak you out too. Yeah, freaks me. Yeah, it freaks
me out because I'm always like in my head, that's why you need the
old guys to talk about stuff, and you have to drill about stuff.
And you know, you know, listen, that's like that in the FDNY
two. You know you're not goingifies every day either. So I love the
concept and I use it in my life, the little things, you know
what I mean, Like you know, your gear, your personal gear,
and and and I try to explain, you know, you have to have
your shit together because it's ten seconds here and fifteen seconds there and twenty seconds
you're gonna need that forty five seconds later, you know what I mean?
The you know, life saver, life saver. Absolutely, guys. I
wanted to talk about the helmet. If very anything, I don't want to
make sure we talk about that. Throw it up there, got ontopotamus,
it's it's coming, brother, yes, tell us about this. So um
we uh we uh. So we found Pat Brown and we um as per
Pat's wishes. He wanted to be cremated, he wanted his ashes spreading Central
Park, and you know, the three truck guys, they took it a
little farther. We went into Central Park one night, two o'clock in the
morning. We planted like a twenty eight foot maple tree and we had a
headstone, like a stone it said, you know, Captain Patrick Brown and
this and that and everything. And so anyway, the park, the parks,
you know, the precinct called us next day, so get all the
shit out of here. You can't play the trees in the middle of thin
But I'll tell you we had. There was Dateline NBC with us and the
poor night manager comes around and he sees twenty guys and he goes, can
I help you. I'm not kn't go. I still feel like I'm gonna
get somebody in trouble. But they said, oh, you didn't get the
memo. Yeah we got. We got permission to plant the tree here.
And he goes, you know, he's it's like two o'clock in the morning
and it's fine, and so anyway, he says to the date line NBC,
guys, let me see the camera. I'd like to say congratulations and
I love you farm. So we got him. Anyway, the precinct call
the next day. We had to get it out of it. So we
went to this bar that three Trucks used to go to affinities on thirteenth Street,
Third Avenue, and Mike Pat's brother reaches into his bag and he gives
me Pat's helmet and I'm like what the He goes, oh, you helped
with the family, blah blah blah, And I was like, I'm not
taking this. Oh, yes you are. And it's like six o'clock in
the morning. I'm like, okay, Michael, thank you guys. So
anyway, I brought it back to three truck and we put it up on
the wall. And then like two weeks later, I get a box it's
the helm, and again I sent it back. They sent it back to
me. I says, I'm not taking it. I don't it's not no
place in my house. But ultimately it wasn't my house for months until the
nine to eleven Museum called and they said, we understand you have Pat Brown's
helme and I said yes. So they said we'd like to display it with
the three truck rig and I said, let me get back to you.
So I call I suppose Mike Moran was the senior man, and I said,
uh, listen, they want this helmet next to the three truck rig.
But I don't want to give it because I don't want to take thunder
away from anybody else, you know. I goes, oh, no,
no, there's gonna be this. There's gonna I said, are you sure?
He says yeah. So I got downtown and I there was like a
hundred pages, you know, on loan in perpetuity to the I says,
take it. I don't have to sign anything. So they put it on
They put it on display there. I think it says something like from Robert
Burkin family and from the Brown family. And that's how I was very happy,
because that's where it should be. Yeah, yeah, no doubt happy
that it found its way there. That's awesome. Uh. Cons Before we
move any further, let's um do all the photos of the of the big
celebrities that have come down to UH, and we'll talk about the h I
thought, yeah, yeah, okay, ready, here you go. Good
yeah, we're starting with the good one. Oh she's not hot on the
eyes. My my be my girlfriend on television. That's right, you're the
i G guy. Right, you guys had an internal fairs guy and uh,
a bunch of years ago, she said to me when she grabbed me
by the face and she's like, look at the space, And I said,
what are you doing? And she goes, You're gonna be my love
interest? And I go, I'm the most hated character on the show.
How is that? And she goes, no, it'll work, it'll work.
And so we think, you know, I think Iced Tea said something
like that, it's gonna be a slow boat to turn around. But anyway,
great line. Oh yeah, so anyway, yeah, they you know,
uh Ed Tucker, the internal affairs guy, and uh you know Olivia
Benson. Uh we became uh you know, boyfriend and girlfriend on the show.
She's I can't say enough for this one. I mean she is just
she's the force of nature. Uh Murska Hargete And so they mother and father
were Mickey Hargete and James Man. James Yeah, um um uh so.
Uh so Dennis would invite her to the academy to the rock each year since
he's been doing it, and the schedules and everything. But this year she
showed up and uh she did everything. I think she pushed the line.
She really propelled off the six stories. Um, you know, she was
cutting cause putting out car fire. So she had a ball. She was
yeah, and she is like, you know, her right ankle is like
ace hardware, right, I mean it's got like six or seven screws in
there, and you know she's got But she did everything. She was she
was all about it. So it was great to see her. Big boost
to the guys, and yeah, it was. It was great for shore.
Well she got here. Oh we know that guy. He was a
fireman too, fifty five engine Yeah, I can never say that ship.
No God was a lieutenant in quant Oh no kay, Yeah, great guy.
I saw him down at the side of the World Trade Center. We
were going in with elements of three truck and I hear, hey, hey,
hey, and and and and I go hey, how are you doing?
And he goes good, how are you doing? I said good?
And you kind of kept up with your group and uh he said to he
went through Proby school with John Moran. Uh uh yeah. Uh so Mike
Moran goes to He goes, SHEMI wants to know if you're a fucking actor
who became a fireman or a fireman who became an actor. Oh. I
I wasn't a volley then at all. I was just uh went down with
three trucks. He's a great guy that you're in touch with him still at
the thing. At the thing, he's very involved with friends of firefighters,
I believe. Yeah, sh how did I get on here anyway? To
tell you the truth? How did you get on? Yeh? When I
was in Indianapolis, you had cheats, gave well, he wouldn't give me
your number. He said he was from fire Island, so as uh so
Robert Park He goes, yeah, he goes, I can't give him you
on you know, I can't give you his number. Yeah, but I
can give me your number. And he gave you. He just gave Jeremy
the number right before you. And then yeah, he's on his game tonight,
bro get out of their coops. I was that guy. Jeff Bezos.
His brother Mark was actually honored by the FDNY Foundation. Uh, these
guys, are you have no idea? How generously on to f D n
Y and the FDNY Foundation. Uh, Mark is a is a captain in
Scarsdale. Uh, say what you want. The guy gets out of bed
the middle of knife with strangers as a volley. Um, Jeff came.
Uh, dudes in fantastic shape. Nothing seemed to bother him. Pushed lines.
Uh uh you know, brought bundles up. A couple of them went
to work. Uh so yeah, quiet hot? Did he bring any hot
babes? They just got engaged. They was saying, right, yeah,
I think somebody's mentioned that to Mike. Was saying, oh, Mike said
that right? Good good? Yeah, so guy, you'd good good?
You want got that one? Good for you? Yeah, guy, I
don't think I have that one doing back then my face, hurch you got
another one? I got one more. I got this last guy right here?
Who is that guy? Did no commissioner in the NFL. Another guy
all about it, suited up, geared up, push lines. Did every
test that was presented to him. I think this was last year. Uh
two thousand and twenty two said he was a real deal too, right,
He wasn't no real deal, no bullshit, made no fuss. Um.
Yeah, and you know, here's the thing. Showed up. You know
what I mean, it's like, oh, you're gonna be fire fighting.
Has no idea what he's gonna be doing, and nobody you know, he's
hanging off a rope. Like you said before, he doesn't have to do
that. You didn't have to do it. And I'm sure you know,
Uh, he was very generous in other respects. I think they have to
pay X amount of money to even well maybe some are invited, but there
are other corporations that pay. You know, I don't even know which corporations.
Forward I know sends a contingent of people. Uh. Other corporations send
the executives. They pay money that these executives come and and and join in
in the day. It happens every year in May fifth or the first Friday
of May. So you just you just just recently what we had Marishka Hargetell,
we had um Steve Bishemy, Billy krut Up, Rachel Ray makes the
breakfast, makes the lunch, makes them. Yeah, forget about it.
I have video tape of her, you know, uh, going off the
roof, you know, even being lower down. I said it was one
of my guys from my department. I bring a couple of my members with
me. Um, and I said, whatever you do. If I mean,
don't drop her, I'll please Jesus. But uh so anyway, Yeah,
she was great and m John Slattery um, uh, Julianna Margali's uh.
Michael J. Fox, Um, Michael J. Fox real, l
J. Fox. Yeah, you know Uh, Adam Ferrara, Uh,
Lenny Clark, John Skurty, Wow. A lot of a lot of a
lot of you know, um, some heavy hitters Nis Leary's crew show up
to support, and you know, a lot a lot of times I think
they get a little intimidated. They don't want to show. You know.
It's like, well, can't I just write a check and get a drink
and some more dirvs? Not today? Yeah, it's great. It's talk
about it all the time, like all guys. I've heard a lot about
that. Yeah, And I get to see guys on your job that I've
known over the years, and it's always nice to catch up with people.
And um, who else out dan who you got? Oh? Well,
there was a great friend of mine. I'll tell you a story. Dennis
Leary calls me once. Uh he Uh, he's across the street from my
house on the Upper West Side and he goes, I'm having dinner with some
fireman. Come over. I come over. There's some guy looking at me
the whole dinner. He looks like a pirate. I'm like, and he
goes to me. You go by, Bobby? I said yeah. He
goes, you got a twin brother, Billy. I said, yeah,
you as your parents are from. What are you writing a fucking book?
And he goes, it's me Eddie And I go Eddie. He goes Eddie
me and he was a lieutenant the twenty two truck. And I said,
oh shit, Eddie, how are you? And uh, I've heard that.
Larry goes, Uh. He goes, do you know every fireman?
And this I said, no, this guy I grew up with. So
anyway, his he went moved back to Ireland for years and then he came
back to America, went on your job and and I hadn't seen the guy
and since I was, you know, twelve years old, and so anyway
he was. He was a storied guy, very competent, uh fireman and
uh uh so he was he was out there. Uh. We used to
joke nobody could say tactical like Eddie. Me and I'm at a black and
Back. I go, yeah, so, uh so he was there,
he loved it there. He retired out of twenty two truck I believe.
And uh so he passed away. Um uh yeah, yeah, his son
is on the job now, actually Emmett and uh who was at the uh
Tommy McGoldrick. You know him. He's a great guy. He was in
charge of burns out there. Uh there's a bunch of guys. Uh yeah,
Um, there's a bunch of guys. Uh Um. I'm trying to
think now. Chief Lama said he knew you. Oh you know who I'm
buddies with. And I have my children who can attest to this. I
could be in Lows, I could be in home depot back in Low Johnny
la Famina. When Johnny, what are you doing? I was getting pitched.
He goes, what are you doing? I said, I'm just looking.
But we would always laugh. We'd always see each other, all of
those guys you see all the time. He moved to Myrtle Beach. But
just a great guy. And I was at a seminar once and some captain
was talking about being at rescue three and who was his mentor? The guy
who was always buttoned up, the guy who was always turtled up, the
guy who was always he was always right there, right, ready to go
to work, right, just a ten percent, John la Femina, And
I remember calling John says, why you're becoming more famous than me? So
anyway, a great guy? Uh yeah, so uh, different guys,
um, and then then I see different guys with with Chief Debonado's uh foundation.
Kevin Jos was the one I heard of him, never heard of him,
Oh you know him? Um. And he was the one who said
perishable skills that you know, I remember when he used that. He used
that expression. Don't get many credits, don't get a lot of these guys.
You guys put up the thing that I was gonna be on tonight.
My phone blew up. Oh hey, bro, you're gonna be mad.
I hope you're all having a good laugh. You're gonna be on with those
assholes tonight. Jeremy texture come on, I'm good one. I said,
no, I got nothings. Both guys who were watching the show texted you,
you're an ass. I can't I gotta say, what day, Bob?
Uh? For a guy who's a Hollywood actor, you sound more like
a fireman than you do a Hollywood actor. Well, you know, I
can drop in and drop out, do you know what I mean? That's
not that's not phony, bro, that's not acting like the way. Just
your knowledge of the fire service and how you talk you sound like a fireman.
Well, it all depends on how you want to play the game,
that's all. You know what I mean. I'm smart enough. My job
is to hold a mirror up. Do you know what I mean? When
you're standing around playing the head of the first Marine division who actually lived and
it's revered by marines, and like, I'm pissing my pants, I'm like,
what i want I'm going to do here? So it's it's when,
like, like I said, my first job that I ever pushed, I'm
like, this is you know, this is the real thing, and it
depends on what you want to bring to it. And I've been awfully lucky
by virtue of the guys who have trained me and continue to train me and
the members I work with, the people in the whole uh Fire Service.
It's it's very honorable in this day and age. Everybody's at each other's throats,
and you know, if these tones go I don't ask gender, race,
create, don't you never you know what I mean. It's like that,
it's it's a very pure endeavor to be a part of in this day
and age, because everybody's whacking each other, and so I feel very grateful
and privileged to be a part of that and to uh to have had that
experience in a million years, I can tell you, a gentleman that I
would never in a million years thought I would ever be uh doing this.
I just never occurred to me, never occurred to me. And by virtue
of Patty is this is I keep. This is his uh, this was
his uh you know, yeah, it was yeah and and and uh you
know when you're looking at that guy looking back at I mean, uh,
everything is in his uh you know. His brother used to say he would
have gotten an awful kick up, Patti, you like talking fire service.
And I remember how he'd be saying something like, oh, good job,
and I'm like what job? He goes, Oh the job we had in
Harlem, And I was like, good job, I said, I'm watching
the news. Ten families lost their houses. How is that a good job.
I didn't make any connection to the to the speak to anything. He
goes, well, we put the fire out, nobody got hurt, and
I'm like, okay, but um, you know, but there were certain
things that he did say about Vietnam, about his training, about his experience
there, about uh, you know, having to go to work with the
fire patrol before he became you know that. Yeah, and and and so
you know, and then okay, the politics on the job, you know
what I mean. And you know, I'd listened to him and I'd say,
your job sounds worse than the fucking mafia, I swear to guy.
And everybody's like got like the Night of the Long Knives, you know,
and uh, well not just the just the way different people out. This
guy hates me. This guy really hates me. This guy really really hates
me. Uh you know. But he was very dedicated to the job I
I you know, and he was a guy I believe, uh uh who
really really took the job very seriously, lost people, lost friends, and
just was sick and tired of that. If he thought it didn't have to
happen, if guys operated you know, asserative lead but safely uh you know,
their job decent people, Um, you know, Uh, he was
a wonderful uh mentor to have in my memory. Do you know what I
mean? Because he informs my fire service. Now just in terms of the
way, yeah, yeah, you know you you you're told, you're shown,
you're taught how it's supposed to be done. Hey, I got an
idea, why don't you do it that way? Um? Because you know,
just the little things that sometimes that that piss you off. And again,
you're a volley, you're a seasonal, you're understaffed, you know,
uh, you're not doing you know, there's a lot of operation believe Yeah,
yeah, going on seventeen in a row or e ms also that comes
with that absolutely. So yeah, I mean my my Lieutenant Patty Lee,
he was in one twenty fourth truck in the seventies when Bushwick was burning.
That's where one twenty fourth the Tacco truck he's in. The Chatty said,
you see how good the show is when you have an irishman on. Ah,
it's my birth right. I heard a story about Patty Um, Patty
Brown, uh that he was close with John Drennan, the guy who and
that. Uh. I don't know if this is true enough, but what
I had heard was that after he was in the hospital for so long that
that Patty had said to him, you can go, you can go,
like it was actually on date line and the actually have him telling Pat in
his own words, said that yeah, right right, and not to me.
It's like, dude, that gets me every time, bro, because
he said he was gonna they were gonna take care of take care of his
kids, take care of your kids. It's okay, okay, it's okay.
Yeah. It was a weird thing because Pat wasn't in that house.
He was up at sixty nine Engine at the time, and there was something
that happened. Whereas Pat was a bachelor, didn't have a family, he
could be assigned to Viena Drennan, uh you know, uh and and and
the company heard of the burn unit and expedite things because people kind of knew
who Pat was. Let's say, I believe he was a captain at the
time, so he could expedite things for the family through the department. I
think there was some consternation about him not having been what was it, four
truck I can't remember, it was five truck truck rather, I'm sorry,
m but that kind of went by the way. And so, yeah,
he did very well by the Drenning family and uh, you know, Veena
would tell you to this day. I believe that he was a complete gentleman
and expedited anything and really cared for John. Uh. And again he didn't
have to go home to a wife or kids or anything. He could be
there a lot. And so yeah, that's the other part of your duty
on your job that you know. You know, pushing aligness is a lot
easier sometimes than than being by a man's bedside forty days. It's like biblical
that he would survive. Uh. I listened to you a podcast to a
fireman who was at that fire Watt Street, and you know, yeah,
so uh you know, uh, what can I say? It's just uh
uh yeah he said those words to John because he relayed those in an interview
himself. It's just an amazing testament to what we'll do for each other,
what we do, you know, the brotherhood. Really people don't understand how
strong it really is. It's just it can be and I've seen it with
my own eyes. Um, we had a fire here October. Uh.
We went all night. It was a semi large volume of fire. Uh.
And then uh, you know, we took up and cleaned up and
at six thirty in the morning, we were all in a van at seven
thirty for a member's funeral, you know what I mean. And you know
we turned out. Everybody turned out for that funeral. Um, these types
of h uh mare's and and and actions are they're going by the wayside.
That kind of honor, that kind of dignity, that kind of respect for
each other and and for for a job or a vocation. Everything's getting like
water dumped on and getting deluded, right, And so to be a part
of service like that in this day and age is uh, you know,
it's it's it's a privilege. No, it's good. I'm glad to hear
it. I talked to guys, you had to have been missing it on
like to miss a funeral, a funeral or I mean, you had to
have there was really no excuse almost really. So yeah, we went up
to that young man, Jared Lloyd, Lieutenant Jared Lloyd up in Spring Valley
and uh, you know it was a cold day and uh you know his
little two little boys that he left behind. You know. The pastor pointed
up to the stands. It was out doors at a at a baseball state
and he said look at these men. These are your family. Now,
I've seen it. I've seen it time and time again. I've seen it.
Also, people fall by the wayside in terms of mission fatigue, I
call it sometimes. And but with most families, if you're close to them,
you know. And there's other members who I was close to over the
years whose family I stay in touch with. I'm not going to mention them
now, but yeah, it's honorable, you know what I mean. It's
like, it's you know, not to get all you know, touchy feeling,
but I believe it's why we're here to help each other. And you
know that day, yeah, that was my fire department did a warrior appreciation
event. For many years we would we would have thirty to sixty veterans come
out. It was great. It was a great event. I remember one
year we voted to put cash, like we've given them knapsacks with golf balls
and all sorts of ships. One said, fuck that, let's just give
them, well, you know, a little party. It was one year
we voted to give them money like this, So we put the money in
the naps back and guys like yeah, I said no, no, no,
no, like this. So they look in and they're like, okay,
you know. So it was a wonderful event and it was very well
attended the community here. Um, two lieutenants who are friends of mine from
your job came out one year and uh, they were very impressed. And
we still do it on a on a very modified you know, like this
summer, I had twelve veterans families come out just for the day for lunch.
We buy them lunch, We go to the beach, We buy kids
their kids, uh, you know, gifts and toys and ice cream,
just to show that we're still plugged in with the veteran community, even though
again, you know, people are like, oh, you know, I'm
not going to give as much, but this department still turns out for veterans.
Good by. You said nah about this guy? Said no, I
like this guy. You said no, no, no, no no.
When you saw that he was on NFL, you like, we got to
get rid of this guy. Out of what I can't we talking about?
Are you talking about me? You said to me your exact words, where
we can't be sloppy seconds. I don't know what that means. Oh,
I did not say that. You said that. I said, no.
Lube I thought, oh, binging ging bing shit stars, you know what
did you want to talk about? A couple of the foundations and stuff?
Throw them up there. Guns got this one well with Joey Foundation, Joey
d Bnardo Foundation, Chief Debonado, He's got to just just the most unbelievable
guys. I've learned from how to conduct yourself as a man, how to
keep your word, how to raise money for other firefighters who don't have anything.
No, a guy in Baltimore just told me that he got bailout gear
last year. I'm like, wait a minute, Baltimore. He goes,
yeah, we don't have bailic here. I'm like, you don't have bailic
gear in Baltimore. These guys have gone to four or five jobs while we've
been talking, you know, and they don't have bail out gear. I
was shocked. If you wanted to buy it yourself, and so uh not
only that is how do you deploy it, how do you use it,
how do you train up in it? And so Chief d with his UM
foundation is entirely effective. I remember one year we were out of East at
some firehouse and they were having a seminar and and guys from Hawaii and I'm
like, where are you guys from. They're like Hawaii. I'm like you
you know, I was like, you're even the most dedicated fireman. You
got the best wives in the world. And we asked them where do you
staying. They're like, oh, we have a hotel in South Jamaica.
I'm like, oh, everybody who wanted like a gift that night gave it
to the Hawaii guys. U but Chief d you didn't stop there. He
turned it into a day of hands on training. And uh so, you
know, two days of hands on training he could just give. He could
just give you and you can give you the rope, and that's that's not
what's happening. And so guys are getting trained up the Suffolk County Fire Academy.
All of the instructors turn out like everybody comes in on the day off
on their nickel on there, you know, And I mean it's extensive.
You got I can't remember that the actual numbers, but you've got hundreds of
guys getting trained, hundreds of guys going home and training. So again,
you could either be on the job, into the job. You can talk
about all the fire service and or you can actually be you know, uh
going out there and training up guys. It's funny this year I missed the
Long Island Uh no, no, no, the the Joey D thing out
East a right after three years. I called Chief and I says, listen,
I can't come. He goes, what's wrong? And I said,
I got fucking COVID. He goes, oh yeah, and I go yeah.
He goes, how Betty, see, I don't want to get anybody
sick, you know. Um. I was at a convention and my wife
goes, how was the convention? It was one of these active conventions they
never went to in my life. And uh, she said, how was
it? They said, if I don't get COVID from this thing, I'm
never againting. Well, I got it, you know, so I couldn't
go to the Chief D thing. And they had another semin odd down in
Texas. Guys. Guys want to learn, you know, especially from you
guys. You know, you guys are the New York Yankees teaching baseball.
You know it's uh and and you know, to a man, I really
never met an instructor, not one who wasn't an absolute gentleman, you know
what I mean, absolute professional choir professional and you know, each and their
own expertise. Um you know, and and that's admirable me to me.
Um so uh so. Yeah, the Joe D. Banaro Foundation and Dennis
Leary you know, kind of got them going. Uh Leary Firefighter dot org.
So Leary has bought boats for New Orleans. We went down there.
We did I don't even know how many trips we brought the New York City
District Council of Carpenters, the Carpenters Union. We said, we'll give you,
we'll fly you down, we'll fly you home, we'll put you up,
we'll give you one meal. You come down, and you restore these
firehouses after Katrina. Well not only did they restore the firehouses, but they
were running, you know why, they were sweat and pipe. They would
do whatever. And the funny thing about New Orleans, it's like, you
know, we were like, don't you need a code like you know,
and they're like, oh no, that's Uncle Jimmy. He's they were letting
us do put the place back together fantastically, and you know, frigid air
and would give us stuff and Nautilus and we're like, you want to wait
room here or workout room. Yeah, you know, so it was unbelievable.
I still when I go down to New Orleans, I just you know,
it's it's unbelievable what he did for the New Orleans, the city,
Ray Nagan, I'll never forget. I said it would take ten years and
ten million, and Leary put fourteen firehouses back into operation in twenty months for
less than two million dollars. And that's a lot of time on the phone,
a lot of pleading with people. Um and for your job command post.
Um. Uh. You know I was mentioning before high rise you guys
didn't have a high rise simulator apparently, Um, we did not you know
flash over um uh that building has the rollover yeah upstairs. Yeah, the
Liz Hopper. It's dedicated to this one Liz Hopper, who used to run
all of the administrative for Dennis Leary. She was like a workhorse. She
passed away of a heart attack. Um yeah, so he's um And for
Worcester. You know, on the grounds of the Worcester Cold Storage fire,
Dennis built it's the most massive firehouse you have ever seen. And it's like,
you know, rescue two trucks, three engines, ambulances chief. But
I mean there's so it's massive. You gotta like walks like you're in a
airport. It's so big. And that's a testimony to his devotion to the
fire service. Again, you know, somebody can give lip service and said,
oh I'm gonna I'm gonna have a fifty fifty for the fireman and whole
shit that he built this massive, multimillion dollars and they built a training facility,
you know, like a real brick and mortar training facility. You got
this guy, Steve Sandal Lagucci. I can't remember what the men affordable affordable
towers that guy with the yeah, yeah, so he's we're trying to get
him on board with with Dennis because it's very effective training from municipalities that don't
have a lot of money. So yeah, Leary Firefighter. Uh you know,
supplementing the Debernardo Foundation. Uh, you know, I think Dennis has
to come on this show to talk about all those things. Problem just I'm
just like he doesn't toot his horn a lot. I'll tell him, I
said, you know these are the guys, tell me, did you well
come listen, come on the show and toot your own all you want bro
too. Well, yeah, yeah, listen. I always let him speak
from you guys. Very similar personality too, Like you guys are pretty similar.
Like when I sat down with him, it's the same thing. Like
his mother's father were from County Kerry and and and my parents were from County
Galway. And the first time I met his mother, I was dressed in
my class as I went up to Metal Day and um Boston with him,
and he thrown me to his family, like to run into ference, you'll
keep them busy. And his mother goes, hey, mom, this is
Bobby Burke. Uh and she says hello in her Irish accent. He goes,
Bobby, where's your family from? I said, Goalway. She goes,
oh, yeah, carry's better. And he's like we were brought here
was a pretty smilar personnel. It's that old Irish you might score around and
somebody else's watched, but you're not scoring around on mine kind of upbringing.
Uh yeah, we get we get along very well. Uh. There are
certain things, uh that in our upbringing that we talk about that nobody else
would understand. It'd be like bringing up you know, Italian Polish. Yeah.
I was listening to a guy tell a story. Uh, he was
cooking for a chief or rather Captain Downey at the time, and he put
sugar in the pasta in the sauce. Uh. You know, only two
Italians, would you know? Uh, you know know about something like that.
We use catch up of course everything on a Friday night when you couldn't
eat meat, you know. So so yeah, Dennis, I can't say
enough about the guy. He put food on my table. And with the
acting world, he you know continually uh carries the flag, picked the flag
up and continue to carry the flag for the Fire Service. And there's no
I can't think of another actor who does that. Who does that? You
know, they're all everybody wants to do something, but you know, but
I never forget it's just a slogan unless you do something about it. Bro.
You know. Yeah, it's a misconception because people think that taxes and
everything pay for the fire Service, and they don't. He understands that you
can supplement these things through his foundation and stuff like that. You guys are
doing a great job. And I want to mention the vet Hack. Okay,
you have to go to the vet Hack vet haack dot org. Now
they do things like I can't even remember the name of it. Like when
a guy's missing a limb and they put on a limb, that's automatically.
It's bionics they do for for veterans. The part of it I'm involved with
is they do rock marches. So we'll meet at fifty ninth Street, two
hundred veterans from all services, air, you know, Marines, Army maybe,
and they get together and it's it's kind of just fellowship. It's like,
hey, how are you doing all? I haven't seen you in the
year. Getting a line on a job somewhere? Maybe we march up you
know, Central Park around we go to somebody's motor pool at some precincts somewhere
host us and it's just the day a guy's hanging out together, uh veterans.
Yeah, so that's a great thing. Yeah, And it's no more
less. He does these events and it's always promoting veteran uh uh employment,
you know, and and making sure guys are hooked in with each other.
If you get a job through his organization, you are obliged and to go
and help another veteran who's obliged. Beating forward and grassroots, nobody gets nobody's
getting any um salary in this uns can we put those uh in the description
chat Yeah, I can. We can do that for sure, Thanks for
king. We also have the fire Family Transport if you want to touch on
it or I don't really work with them anymore. They called me a couple
of times, you know, to go to the Bernie cantor uh cantor Fitzgerald.
So they have the big I forget the name of it. They used
to do it around nine to eleven, um, and you go up there
and you're the celebrity for them, and uh so I did that and it
was Fire Family Transporter is uh pretty much run by the the form of football
team is the way I looked at it, because these guys are like,
hey, jelly monster. Uh. But they do great work. I mean
it's unbelievably effective. Um. Another part of the fire service that you don't
even consider until you have to consider ortunately they are always going to treatment,
guys going for you know, so they do tremendously effective work. And you
know whatever they asked me to do, I would do. Um. Uh
yeah, so I told you they gave me a crystal like plaque, but
they forgot to invite me to the dinner to wow son of them. But
then the next year when they invited me to the dinner, I was telling
you I won the fifty fifty. I remember. I think Danny Prince uh
picked he picked the telephone number out and he goes, I was sitting with
uh, commission Nigro, Joe Dum, Patty Brown's sister, all this table
and he goes, the name is Burk, and everybody at my table goes,
WHOA like this? And Danny or Patty kind of somebody goes, You're
not the only bark in this room is nine one seven six. Fore I'm
the only one with that rock. And then I said right away, I
go I give it right back to the house, and ten truckies like I'll
read your ticket, and I go, oh, you know, we will
not take the money back. So I was like one am I doing?
You know, it was like eight thousand dolls. I'm like, one am
I doing? And I did. Commissioner and I go. Nigro was next
to me. He goes, boy, but you feel like shit, And
I was like, I do you know. I'm like, I don't want
this money. So I gave it to where it did most good and Yeah,
that was a funny night. Uh, I go to It was at
Anton's or Russo's on the Bay. It's like a thousand guys there. Yeah,
on the bay. I was you know, I can't eat eggplant.
I'll tell you it's a good meal. Sorry, my wife invited me.
My wife is Italian. Her grandfather worked at a place called Murray's Cheese Shop.
And little literally my first date, she gives me me eggplant and I
said, oh you know what, eight I stuck getting red. My throat
is closed, and I'm like dying. That night, she goes, would
you like some more in the egg plan? Yeah? Sure, my tongue
is swollen. I'm like, oh god. She had me lunch. This
is the God's honest. And the next day she had screen blunt. She
goes, there's a little bit left. Somebody said, I don't know what
the ship I never had in my life, but it's fucking killing me,
you know. And and and that was, Uh, that was June of
like May of of in nineteen eighty forty eighty Yeah, forty but line in
my coffee, Charlie. Wow, he had a day game on them,
bro. He didn't care what he would happen to him. Yeah, a
phylactic shock. Still I did it was we never had a plan. I
could nobody. You know, you put some meat in the pop boiler out
of its boiler boiler top. My mother was She was a wonderful woman.
She was like a druid. She was very religious. But no cook.
We have the whole pack. After every meal. My father would look at
it us like, we go, God, spare you the health that you
should make another meal like this. We're like, oh jeez, I saw
my kids last time. We used to stick the rustle sprats in the corner
of the table so we wouldn't have to eat them. You know, everything
said. I married my wife just so I had got a good meal out
of it. There you go, bro, Now he's got you know,
he's got the meat balls. He's got. Now he's going like this.
Now he's walking. Put a little sugar in there. Put a little Yeah,
I got a big tree in my back yard. Don't even you got
your back. I'm telling you, no more use for this guy. All
right? Like an awesome job, bro job, really a lot of much.
It was enjoyable. I was a little nervous. I'm still a little
nervous. I'm always in all of you guys and your commitment, your service.
Um, you know so uh you're not doing all right, you know,
to living, not that what you're helping, what you're doing, what
you're doing again? Thank you said, it's easy to write a check you
walking the walk. I always say, if if a dopey actor can do
it, there's no excuse you can do it too, So I say,
dopey fineman, So here we go the same thing. Yeah right, you
got any shout outs? Bro? No? So jan what about you kid?
I actually I do. I was gonna wish a little happy birthday to
my old lady. She's uh oh birthdays today, So yeah, very good
around the room a little while I wish birthday last night, oh bom.
But other than that, I appreciate that. Yeah, all right, Well
you want to play the ending of the show there? What do you got?
Yeah? Sure, that's go ahead. Well, actually, does did
Bob you have any more shoutouts that you have? No? You were good?
Right, I'm I'm tap out. All right, here we go.
Let me go ahead and do our out show stand by for a few Well,
thank you first and foremost for tuning in to another episode of The Getting
Salty Experience. Thank we're out a good content, far from it. If
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experience. Accellent one last one, all right, guys. Also one more
shout out. We Louis and I will be at the New York State Chiefs
Association one hundred and seventeenth Annual June fourteenth through June seventeenth. Come on down
and see me. Roofie and Bobby Burke will be there, and Rista Hoggits.
It'll just be me and Roofie. He's like, this just crash and
that Michael does a very nice job. That's him, right, yeah,
well paid for that. Well whoa whoa with the hoo paid Hold on minute,
alrightel uh, mister Burke, thank you so much, Thank you for
everything you do for the so much appreciate it really is real honor to be
here. More than I can say, roof anything that's its baby. Alright,
guys, we'll see you on Thursday night. We might have a guy
I think Wolfe's morning. He's on it. He's working on something. Until
then, guys, uh, stay low and go all right, everybody,
we'll see it. The big one al right, guys, good any one